Wal-Mart - All posts tagged Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart shares may have done nothing over the last year, but what they’ve done the last week could suggest brighter times ahead for the languishing retailer.

The world’s largest retailer’s stock was up 0.9% at a near one-month high of $76.77 in afternoon trading Tuesday. It has gained 0.1% over the last year, which looks a lot worse considering the S&P 500 has soared 20% over the same time.

Focus on Facebook and J.C. Penney this earnings season if you must, writes Douglas A. McIntyre of 24/7 Wall St. Just recognize that they\’re a sideshow. Instead, rely on these seven quarterly reports to tell the true tale.

Mega-retailer Walmart
and progressive newsmagazine The Nation are trading barbs over fair pay for workers. The explosive and indignant nature of this debate is starting to sound a little silly.

Walmart is a multinational corporation with $17 billion in annual profits, and it’s often derided for its treatment of its workers. The Nation is a niche left-wing publication aimed at literati. But their public relations professionals have been duking it out with equal ferocity this week.

It started when The Nation, whose editorial staff has been a vigorous proponent of higher wages for Walmart workers, posted an open letter to Walmart’s CEO and Board of Directors asking it to increase hourly wages to $12.

So far this year, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. shares inched up about 1.5%, trailing the performance of the S&P 500, the Dow, the index\’s other retail member Home Depot Inc. and rivals including Target Corp. and Costco Wholesale Corp.

Ahead of the company’s fourth-quarter earnings release on Thursday, Wall Street is feeling jittery about how factors including the increase in payroll tax, the delay in tax refunds and rising gasoline prices may hurt the spending pattern of the company’s bread-and-butter low income customers.

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